How to force a "push" for contacts sync?

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Level 1

104 points

How to force a "push" for contacts sync?

In Settings, I use my MobileMe account ONLY for contacts, calendars, and bookmarks, not for e-mail.

I have Fetch New Data set to Push, then Push set to Manually, then in Advanced, my e-mail accounts are set to Fetch (i.e. it'll update my mail only when I launch the Mail app) and my MobileMe account set to Push (i.e. I'd like them to be pushed to the phone).

However, no contacts seem to get pushed to the phone. It's confusing as to how I'm supposed to initiate a manual push. Launching Contacts doesn't update the contacts.

I don't particularly want to set Push to every 15 or 30 minutes, because I don't want to drain battery life. I'd be happy if it sync'ed once a day, but right now it's not syncing at all.

Can someone help me understand how "push" and "manually" work (since there is no "force push right now" button anywhere) and how I can keep my contacts on my iPhone updated regularly automatically?

Should I set MobileMe to Fetch? So that, as in when I launch Mail it updates the mail, when I launch Contacts it will update the Contacts? That would be good enough for me.

(Also, this entire post is about downloading contacts from MobileMe, but I'd also like to make sure the reverse works too -- that if I add a contact or calendar date to my iPhone, it gets synced with MobileMe and later appears on my desktop machine.)

Mac Pro 8-core (2 x 2.8), Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Aug 22, 2009 7:36 AM

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Answer 1

Daiya

Level 4

1,666 points

Aug 23, 2009 12:29 PM in response to David Das

Huh. Mine it does happen automatically, both ways.

On the phone, Settings, Mail, Mobile Me account--do you have to set to sync contacts, calendar and bookmarks? Those can be turned off individually (this is in the account detail itself, not under the Fetch/Push setting screen.)

On the computer, System Preferences, Mobile Me, do you have it set to sync automatically?

When I see things not syncing, I generally force a sync from the computer, figuring that triggers the server and so on down the line to the phone.

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Answer 2

David Das Author

Level 1

104 points

Aug 23, 2009 7:42 PM in response to Daiya

I solved it! The answer was -- confusingly -- that I had MobileMe mail all set up but had not actually entered the details of the MobileMe account. It's slightly confusing that the MM e-mail address is a different entity from the MM account. The former was set up; the latter was not.

Once I entered the MM account, suddenly all the contacts started migrating across!

Whew!

Thanks for your help Daiya. Going and following the things you told me to check is what tipped me off to this.

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